The aging of the skin of a person appears as skin sagging, wrinkles, skin dullness, liver spots, or some other to produce a remarkable effect onto the external appearance of the person. For preventing or slowing down such phenomena, a skin-care agent for anti-aging (aging resistance) has been desired.
Out of these phenomena, wrinkles and skin sagging result from the drying of keratin, or irradiation with ultraviolet rays, and are caused by changes in the tissue of the skin, such as a physical deterioration of a matrix component thereof.
The skin dullness, and liver spots are related to the configuration or composition or the quantities of skin-color-producing factors, such as melanin, hemoglobin in blood, and carotene. Out of these factors, melanin is a particularly important factor for determining the color of a skin, and causes the skin dullness, and liver spots. In other words, the color of a skin depends on the amount and the nature of melanin, and the degree of the distribution thereof. Factors for promoting the production of melanin are ultraviolet rays and inflammation; and, in particular, ultraviolet rays having short wavelengths (290 to 320 nm) produce a large influence.
As anti-aging agents, substances each originating from a natural component have also been researched. One of the substances is a substance named arctigenin, which is a kind of lignin contained in Saussurea laniceps (medusa) or cherry bark. It has been known that arctigenin has a skin-whitening effect, and skin-barrier-performance-improving and other effects (Patent Documents 1 to 6).